Where is the line between appeal and art in photography?

Illah · Nov 30, 2006

So Flickr has raised some questions for me. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I've noticed that while some great photos are seen on a daily basis, some so-so stuff makes it to the top because:

1. It involves a hot girl.
2. Someone does something 'cute'
3. Someone includes a long poem or other excessive description which draws comments and whatnot, driving it up the list.

So my questions is one that bugged me in film school also - where do you think the line between art and appealing to an audience is?

After all, pretentious art that very few people 'get' can in many ways be considered poor in my opinion. I've always thought that art should be more accessible. Some great works are immediately impressive even to lay people.

But at the same time, crap can impress a whole lot of people...

Thoughts?

--Illah

Torus34 · Nov 30, 2006

First, let's divorce the discussion of art from the concept of popularity. It simply does not compute. Tiny Tim was very popular a few years ago. Would you consider his singing to be artistic? Or even 'great?' Go to any flea market and you'll find paintings on black velvet selling like hot cakes. Do you judge them to be art?

With that out of the way, art is recognizable as such because it has something to say to us, usually [though not always] something deeper than 'Isn't this beautiful!' In some mediums, notably music, it's even possible to identify the 'voice' of a great artist. Mere likeness to reality, the prime forte [accent acute] of the camera, is not necessarily a part of art. A trompe l'oeil painting is not judged solely on its agreement with visual reality.

Any discussion of art should also include some reference to aesthetics, for the two concepts are inextricably joined.

fmw · Nov 30, 2006

Some photography is art but not very much of it. When I was a commercial photographer I didn't think of myself as an artist at all. I viewed myself as a technician whose job it was to fulfill a client's work order. Some of my images were beautiful and pleasing but they were all commercial. Some of them included attractive models but there wasn't anything artistic about them. They were what the client wanted. It doesn't make it good or bad. But it doesn't make it art either.

Photographers who engage in art are few and far between. Most are amateurs. They often become more famous than commercial photographers but they don't make as much money. For the most part, I appreciate and enjoy their work. But I also appreciate the work of good commercial shooters. Photography doesn't have to be art to be good.

mysteryscribe · Nov 30, 2006

Im going to vote that:
IM A GREAT ARTIST AND YOU AREN'T....

before you bar and ban me from the site thats what most people think deep inside. The truth is most of us are in the Aren't list, but once in a while we slip one into the are list.

rmh159 · Nov 30, 2006

LOL so sadfully true.

mysteryscribe said:
...The truth is most of us are in the Aren't list, but once in a while we slip one into the are list.

From my own point of view... I think the question is extremely vague and will always be. How does one define art and really... does it even matter??? In regards to your flikr situation... popularity has absolutely nothing to do with quality. I think Boy Bands prove that theory as well as anyone can.

I totally agree that probably 99% of the pics out there aren't art... they're snap shots. Like mysteryscribe said, the passion we all crave is the idea that once in awhile we'll hit one out of the park and it'll be "art" or close enough that we're satisfied with our efforts.

Again, it's just my opinion but my expectations of myself as a photographer isn't to produce "art" it's just to produce an image that I can look at and be happy with. If others share that same enthusiasm about my work... awesome. That's probably as far into the "art" argument as I care to go.

My two cents.

mysteryscribe · Nov 30, 2006

On antique road show a couple of years ago a man brouth in a stone burial urn from almost the time of christ. They told him unenthusiastically that it was worth about 75 bucks. Just not a market for burial urns you know.

The very next item was an original (how the hell you can tell I have no idea) Barbee doll. It was worth over three hundred bucks. I remember that story whenever I say or do something that isn't in the mainstread of todays thinking.

I would rather have the urn with a flower in it, than a Barbee doll I would just have to put in the microwave anyway.

neea · Nov 30, 2006

That's a very unique comparison.
I would have to agree that I'd rather have the urn.
Really.. it's about emotion for me.
I call it art if it strikes an emotion.
An 'original' barbie wont strike much emotion unless you were one of those girly girls (god know i am not!!) and it reminds you of the one your grandfather baught for you, or something like that.

Anyways, I think to be art it needs to strike an emotion.
Which is why I can say subject A is art and you could disagree and think that subject B is art.
It all depends on who it strikes that emotion with.

I've had trouble selling my pictures as 'art' and I constantly tell myself that it's simply because I havent found someone who sees in them what I see (or maybe its something i say to make myself sleep at night).

Bottom line, I think art is about emotion.
At least for me

mysteryscribe · Nov 30, 2006

There is an old saying among old photographers. People buy photos of themselves, their family, their friends, and their things, but only now and then anything else.

If you want to make consistant money in photography, you need to whore yourself out to that principle. Now I know somebody is going to say but I read an article about a guy who makes half a million selling pictures of butterflies.

Yeah and I know a thousand who are cab drivers but have a room full of equally good pictures all framed up waiting for someone to buy.

DocFrankenstein · Nov 30, 2006

For one, art has no place in a material world. On average people spend more on their passport photos than any other kind of photography.

Two:
To be able to appreciate art, one needs education, which the masses will never succeed in attaining. It is only logical then, that the art will be able to be appreciated only by select few. And it is axiomatic that popular is mediocre.

A caveman will be able to appreciate the female form. And the caveman will probably rate it quite highly.

DocFrankenstein · Nov 30, 2006

"Everything popular is wrong"
Oscar Wilde

mysteryscribe · Nov 30, 2006

ah but not everything wrong is popular

rmh159 · Dec 1, 2006

DocFrankenstein said:
"To be able to appreciate art, one needs education"

Hahaha not sure I can agree with this one.

Like this discussion... art is extremely subjective. To one it's an emotional connection, to another it's an aquired skill. Everyone defines it differently. The thing to remember is it's different to everyone and not worth stressing. That's my opinion.

You can rip your hair out all day cuz Nsync makes millions while there are amazing bands EVERYWHERE struggling to sell 5 tickets but you can't change people's tastes. It is what it is.

mysteryscribe · Dec 1, 2006

I don't think i can agree either. My dad was a big time bird hunter and a mill hand. He and I were hunting when I was in high schooll. I think we were mostly hiking to be honest.

Anyway we came upon this old house. The old 'wider lady' leased her farm to my dad to bird hunt on. The rest of her income came from her husband social security and what little the Government paid her not to grow food. But that isnt the story.

She probably had a grade school education. We went into her very run down house to pay her and get the next years hunting lease signed. There in the dining area of the old beat up kitchen was a beautiful still life print of vegitables laying on a table with an oil cloth checkered cloth. Yes you could tell it was oil cloth from the detail in the shot.

I had no idea who did it or the value of it if any. "Where did you get the print." Now I expected her to say it came from some family memeber who had left it to her.

"Jess, my late husband, bought it for me. Kinda purday ain't it." More or less what she said.

I think you have to be educated to talk about art but not to appreciate it.

neea · Dec 1, 2006

mysteryscribe said:
I think you have to be educated to talk about art but not to appreciate it.

Very well spoken

Alex_B · Dec 1, 2006

DocFrankenstein said:
For one, art has no place in a material world. On average people spend more on their passport photos than any other kind of photography.

well alot of art is collected by collectors who only collect since they can afford it ... without really appreciating it.

Pieces of artwork are often an investment and luxury good. And as such they have nothing to do with appreciation.

Two:
To be able to appreciate art, one needs education, which the masses will never succeed in attaining. It is only logical then, that the art will be able to be appreciated only by select few. And it is axiomatic that popular is mediocre.

I don't agree fully here ... a lot of art can and is appreciated by people with no sort of higher education at all. And a lot of people with very high education do not appreciate art at all (I knwo some who pretend to, since it is expected from them and it is en vogue ... but this I do not call appreciation).

It is only that people with less education often cannot really phrase in words what they think of a particular piece of artwork, and they cannot tell the history behind a certain style and they might never have heard of tghe artist. But still some can appreciate it!

To enjoy art you do not need any education, but to buy art, you often need a lot of money. that is why you don't find a lot of expensive art at all in some houses. People just cannot afford to collect it!

And if I call some things kitsch and horrible, then I do not do this as I am oh-so-well educated (which I doubt anyway), but because I simply don't like it, and I probably did not like it already at the age of 5 or so

A caveman will be able to appreciate the female form. And the caveman will probably rate it quite highly.

speaking of real cavemen, their drawings were full of symbols and of basic forms, but in many cases they were not true representation, but appear as rather arty interpretations of these forms, sometimes with creativity (which is totally unneccessary if you just want to represent the female body, the deer to hunt or whatever). So this contradicts this quote I think. There are some really beautiful and abstract cave-drawings ...